The Platypus Effect
by Kofukuna Shi no Kami
Summary: A bit of a variation from S2E9, Eggs Benefits, which greatly affects our favourite trio of campers. This story will contain fun interaction and be a little lighthearted with very occasional moments of seriousness. Rated T for the language, the rest is pretty quaint. Fluffy friendship stuff. A lot of Max and Nikki interaction, might become a pairing.


**The Platypus Effect**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Camp Camp or Rooster Teeth Productions**

**Chapter 1**

Max stood silently as the large egg cracked, the shell being pushed outwards by small limbs. It had been a long day already, but at this moment, he felt it might have been worth it all. A strangely warm sensation seemed to creep into him, as he saw the tiny baby platypus which Nikki held nervously. She herself seemed to be even more excited than usual. She had a wide grin on her face, as she carefully gripped the small creature, ensuring not to squeeze it too tightly. The platypus itself was gawking straight ahead toward Max, although that was probably only because he was directly in front of it.

"Aww!" Nikki exclaimed, as she turned towards Max, who helped her hold the egg. And the dark haired boy couldn't help but agree. He hadn't wanted to spend his entire Saturday taking care of something as fragile and stupid as an egg, but he now realized that maybe it wasn't such a waste of a Saturday after all. Admittedly, he hadn't done much himself, and had only walked around with Nikki and let her do most of the work, but he still felt a very alien feeling of protectiveness for the baby platypus.

"Wow, Nikki," Max said, feeling oddly inspired. "Thanks for getting us through this. You know, sometimes life is beautiful." A small smile crept onto his face, as the duo cradled the baby platypus.

But the moment was short lived , as the camp 's mascot leapt up, with its jaws stretched open, in the direction of the egg. In that moment, Max was completely horrified, as he saw what was happening. The baby platypus was in danger. And something deep within him roared in outrage, forcing him to move. He raised the egg above his head, barely out of the range of the larger platypus, and jumped backwards, away from the animal.

The platypus nearly charged at him again, but before it could, Nikki pounced onto it, pinning it down against the ground, growling in a feral manner.

"Max, take the platypus and get to David and Gwen. We need to keep it safe." The girl screamed, struggling to remain on top of the platypus. Max nodded, and broke out into a run in the direction of the counsellors' office. He made it there, and immediately saw Gwen sitting behind her desk, reading one of her trashy magazines.

"Gwen, I need your help! This egg hatched, but now the fucking mother wants to eat it!"

The young woman just looked over her magazine with disinterest, before waving her hand rather nonchalantly. "All you need is a baby nest. Check over at David's desk, he has all of that shit."

Max groaned at her lack of initiative, but chose to take whatever help he got. He walked over to the much busier desk before tearing open every drawer he saw. They mostly contained paperwork and simple first aid equipment, but he finally found something that might work as a nest.

It was a large bowl which was used to hold a bunch of erasers, which Max unceremoniously tossed out, before placing the egg into it. "I did it. I actually did it!"

His shout of victory caused Gwen to look over at him, with a smug look on her face. "You still need to pad it. It's way too hard for a little animal baby to live in, let alone a complete new-born." She finally got out of her seat, and walked over to the boy. "You just need to take some soft and light stuff and scatter it across the bowl, so that the little guy doesn't hurt himself." She knelt down and picked up some of the plain sheets of paper Max had thrown around, before shredding them up, and placing them all around the egg in the bowl. The ten year old joined her, and they both continued to do this until the bowl seemed sufficiently safe for the tiny platypus.

"Well I gotta admit, this thing cuter than I imagined it would be, especially looking at its mommy." The woman said, as the little baby tried to move around in its impromptu nest. "I thought it would have been more like something out of a horror movie, with blood on it."

"Yeah, well I guess some stuff is just unexpected." Max responded, as he folded his arms in front of his chest. "Speaking of which, I really need to go and get back to Nikki about those. She has been going crazy over this thing all day, and it is just gonna get worse now that this thing is actually alive."

Gwen smirked, before laughing at Max. "Well, well, well. It seems like someone doesn't want to admit that they might care for anything other than themselves."

The boy wrinkled his nose, as he glared at the counsellor. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, the way I see it, you are trying to act as if you do not care for the baby platypus by saying that Nikki is the reason why you are acting so caring and protective. But you just don't want to face the fact that you like the platypus, and you also care about it." The woman said with a smug look on her face, as she looked at the boy.

"Gwen...that is literally a pile of fucking bullshit. I am not taking care of this platypus because I want to, but rather only because Nikki has spent the entire day fretting over it, and it wouldn't do anyone any good if she gets pissed. So i don't know what you think is going on here, but I'm not doing this because I secretly love baby platypuses or something. I don't even know if 'platypuses' is a fucking word." The boy responded rather aggressively, before grabbing the bowl and hoisting it up in his arms. "And now, if you don't have any more of your psycho conspiracy theories, I'm going to go back to show this guy to Nikki."

The boy got up from the ground, and began to move towards the door when he was stopped by Gwen, who calmly placed a hand upon his shoulders. "Actually, I'll be taking that to Nikki. You still have to clear up the mess you made here. This office should be spotless by the time I come back." She ordered, before taking the nest from his arms, and walking out of the door. This left Mad to grow mad in isolation, as this was even more work being piled onto him than usual, and at this point it was bordering upon actual child labour.

Gwen merely smirked as she walked away from the office, with the large bowl in her arms. 'I swear, these guys keep forgetting that I dual majored in psych.'

**Author's Note:**

**I realize that this may be a bit of a stretch of an idea, but I think it is imaginable, and hence doable. So, to put it simply, I recently saw Camp Camp. Like, I binged the show in the last twenty four hours. And I loved it. A lot. Too bad I don't have RT First or I would have completed the entire show upto today. (Damn you limited availability S4E2).**

**In this fic, I basically take the events of S2E9, Eggs Benefits, while shifting them up slightly. Most likely, this will not be too serious a story, and will have cute, adorable and fluffy moments between the characters.**

**I doubt I will actually explore pairings, although it might happen. Just so you know, if it does, I will obviously not go into the more...mature stuff. There will be heavy hinting at close friendships and maybe romantic interest between a couple of characters or something.**

**Well, I guess that is it. This is the pilot of sorts, because it sets up the change to canon, and the next chapters will show how that change affects the story. It will take some time for the changes to become more evident, and for a proper deviation from canon, but until then, I would like it if you bear with me.**

**So, follow, fav if you like it, and review or PM if you have any questions. Future updates will most likely be much longer.**

Peace Out

Kofukuna Shi No Kami


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